The Steinmetze and Richter families are from a little village near Ulm; small farmers and craftsmen, who saw clearly that things for them would not improve if they remained in Germany. Christian Friedrich ‘Vati’ is a man of some education and wide-ranging interests, whose’ idea it was to sign a contract with the Verein for a share of land in Texas. His son-in-law, Hans ‘Hansi’ Richter – a younger son himself and not likely to inherit anything more than a small field or two, uncharacteristically agrees with ‘Vati’ – and so together with their families, they leave the village where their families have lived for centuries … and start again, on the wild Texas frontier.

The Beckers are of German origin also – but they have been long settled in the United States; first in Pennsylvania, and then in Texas, where Alois Becker eventually settled in a tiny village on the Upper Colorado with his wife and two sons. His daughter Margaret married an aristocratic Bostonian, who had come to Texas to recover his health and to teach school.